M75-79: Skip Steiner Runs Away With It in Virginia Beach Heat

• Skip Steiner won the M75-79 age group in 2:29:33 (11:24/mi), finishing 17:58 clear of second place — the largest margin on the podium.
• The podium was three 77-year-olds: Steiner, William Gaw Jr. (2:47:31), and Bill Smith (3:03:49).
• Bill Smith and David Evans were separated by just 34 seconds — 3:03:49 to 3:04:23 — in the tightest battle of the day among the nine finishers.
• Bruce Gladstone posted the strongest late push of the contenders, recording the 1,951st-fastest men's split on the 20K-to-finish leg to edge clear of 6th place.

Nine men aged 75–79 toed the line at Virginia Beach on a punishing morning — 71°F, 73% humidity, and a 17 mph wind off the coast. Against that backdrop, Skip Steiner of Lusby, MD made it look almost straightforward. Running 11:24 per mile, he crossed in 2:29:33 and was never seriously threatened; his men's field position climbed steadily from the 15K checkpoint all the way to the finish, a sign of controlled, confident racing while others faded around him.

William Gaw Jr. of Bellbrook, OH held second place with similar composure, his men's field position ticking forward through each checkpoint en route to a 2:47:31 finish. The real drama unfolded just behind him. Bill Smith (Liberty, MO) and David Evans (Greenbush, VA) ran the back half of the race virtually in lockstep — Smith crossed in 3:03:49, Evans in 3:04:23, a gap of 34 seconds after 13.1 miles of racing in the heat.

Bruce Gladstone of Westfield, NJ rounded out the top five in 3:06:11, and his strongest segment came late — he posted a notably fast 20K-to-finish split that helped him pull away from the field in the closing miles. Timothy Dull, racing on home turf in Virginia Beach, finished sixth in 3:13:53. At the back of the group, Neal Ammerman and John Ramirez — both finishing within 39 seconds of each other — closed out a nine-man field that, on a kinder day, might have run even faster.